Huckabee Clueless After Bhutto's Death, Says Pakistan Has "Eastern Borders" With Afghanistan

Posted by Satyam Khanna, Think Progress at 11:02 AM on December 28, 2007.

Forced to respond to the tragic assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has spent the last 24 hours constantly fumbling and apologizing for his cluelessness and incompetence on a key foreign policy issue.

This morning on MSNBC, Huckabee said that Musharraf was unable to control Pakistan's "eastern borders" with Afghanistan:

People who questioned my view of foreign policy probably need go back and read the speech that i delivered back in Washington in September. ... We have seen what happens in the Musharraf government. He has told us he does not have enough control of those eastern borders near Afghanistan to be able go after the terrorists. But on the other hand, did he not want us going in so what do we do?

Watch it to your right:

Note to Huckabee: Pakistan shares its "eastern border" with India, not Afghanistan.

Huckabee also seized on the Bhutto assassination to tighten up his hard-line anti-immigration stance. Yesterday, he said the U.S. should be on heightened alert from the threat posed by Pakistani immigrants:

[F]ormer Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee suggested that after the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the United States should, "have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our border, and particularly to make sure, if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country. We just need to be very very thorough in looking at every aspect of our own security internally."

Also yesterday, Huckabee addressed Bhutto's death after "[striding] out to the strains of 'Right Now' by Van Halen." He said the U.S. should weigh the impact Bhutto's death would have on Pakistan's "continued" martial law. But President Pervez Musharraf formally lifted the emergency rule in Pakistan on December 15th, nearly two weeks ago.

Huckabee also told an Orlando crowd that he offered his "apologies" for what happened in Pakistan. The campaign quickly recanted the statement, saying he actually meant "sympathies."

Huckabee's muffed and embarrassing responses to Bhutto's death underscore his glaring foreign policy incompetence.

Tagged as: foreign policy, pakistan, huckabee, bhutto

Satyam Khanna is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.